City Attorney Erika Evans has a lot of work ahead, especially if she’s going to stick to her campaign promises of bringing back community court and addressing the backlogged DUI and domestic violence cases. by Nathalie Graham So m any sneakers and Blundstones. In a sterile lobby of the hulking Columbia Tower, next to the Monorail Coffee stand, office workers in jeans walked by. Schlubs. Breaking from the crowd, Erika Evans walked briskly from the elevators in black heels with a leather binder stamped with “Seattle City Attorney’s Office” in her hands.  It’s Wednesday, just two days after Evans was sworn in and officially took over the buzzing lawyer hive that is the City Attorney’s Office. Evans, the first Black person and second woman in the office’s 150 year history, will oversee prosecutions of criminal misdemeanors, the most serious of which are driving under the influence and domestic violence crimes. She’ll also be the city’s lawyer in all civil matters, like when big businesses sue the city for implementing any kind of progressive revenue or when the federal government attacks the city. Evans started the week by kicking the right-wing media hornets nest. In an attempt to start untangling the mess her predecessor, Republican Ann Davison, made of the city, Evans issued a memo directing prosecutors in her office to prioritize diversion over court for drug cases in a way Davison, whose whole thing was arresting drug users, hadn’t. The plan is to work closely with the  Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program to assess options for those caught with or using drugs. A 2023-era city ordinance codified that approach—diversion over recidivism—but Davison flouted that with her own punitive policies which were unsuccessful at getting people into treatment, which Davison claimed was the point.  Evans has a lot of work ahead, especially if she’s going to stick to her campaign promises of bringing back community court and addressing the backlogged DUI and domestic violence cases. The Stranger met with Evans at a weird office lobby to ask what Seattle can expect from her in the coming days, weeks, and months. This QA has been edited for length and clarity. You hit on this during your swearing in ceremony, but let's dive in again. What are your immediate priorities for this office? Day, one week, one month, one what can we expect? We have already told our prosecutors we're no longer doing blanket affidavits on judges. There was a big battle with one of the elected judges, Judge Puja Vaddadi, and that resulted in more cases getting on a backlog, because there's not an elected judge hearing matters. [Editor’s note: Davison preemptively disqualified Vaddadi from hearing criminal cases. Vaddadi filed a bar complaint against Davison and Davison’s at-the-time criminal justice chief, Natalie Walton Anderson.] And so that was something that we told our office that effective January 1, we're no longer going to be doing blanket affidavits. It's an individual basis. There is discretion we have, but we're not going to be trying to unseat elected judges through other means, just because. And had a blanket affidavit—which broadly bars a judge from hearing cases—happened before Anne Davidson and her office had stopped Judge Vaddadi from overseeing criminal cases? Was that an action typical of the city attorney’s office?  Not in my nearly decade recollection of this office had there been a blanket affidavit. There were individual affidavits of prejudice that get filed occasionally, but to have a directive to an entire office that all these prosecutors, shall not allow [Vaddadi] to hear cases—I don't remember that happening. Any more plans for this week that get the ball rolling?  You may have seen some stuff on the [memo I released]. Oh, yup, I saw that. But, I’d love to hear what you have to say about it. Oh, it was simple, some people lost their minds with things we've said on the campaign trail, things I am going to deliver on, the things that I've talked about— that's important to me. It's also important that we're being good stewards of our public dollars and of public safety and essentially just directing our prosecutors that if we're getting cases for someone using or possessing user quantities [of drugs], the first approach is to make sure they're getting connected with LEAD (Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion) or some diversion.  And that's even what the law says. The ordinance says it is recommended and encouraged that people that are arrested for that get diverted. The City Attorney’s Office was just criminally charging folks and not giving them that opportunity. And the numbers that the Department of Public Defense came out with said 97 percent got that prosecution and no treatment.  So we're actually going to be following the law and making sure people have that opportunity to get connected with services and treatment. And we are saying, if there is no meaningful progress, we're really trying, and that's not happening, we reserve the right to do other methods or traditional approaches. On that note, this memo that you put around drug use and drug possession diversion seems to have been misinterpreted.  [Laughs] Yes.  Seattle Police Department Chief Shon Barnes sent an email that overstated your memo and sent things into a tizzy. He said all charges related to drug possession and drug use would be referred to LEAD. Is that a misunderstanding? Is that incorrect? I think [the memo] was just interpreted that [SPD] won't make any more arrests, which that's not true. He didn't say that in his memo, either. [Editor’s note: According to an internal email obtained by Publicola, Barnes wrote, “Effective immediately, all charges related to drug possession and/or drug use will be diverted from prosecution to the LEAD program.”] Officers still have the discretion to make arrests. That's something that the mayor and the chief control, we're just saying on our end that we're going to let them get diversion. And [Barnes] is just saying, also in conjunction and partnership, we're going to make sure these folks get that opportunity for diversion, too.   Would you say that Mike Solan's interpretation of your memo was correct? In case you missed it, he called the memo “an ignorant political decision to arrest offenders for open drug use.”  No, no, it wasn't. The way he put it out there there's gonna be no more arrests. It’s misinformation. Don’t believe the hype!  Just staying on this since it’s really the only news that’s happened since you’ve been in office. Sorry, about that.  You know what? Thank you for saying that. Because it's like, damn Mayor Wilson and me, can we just get inaugurated and try to get things done?  But, anyway, Councilmember Rivera sent an email to her constituents mentioning your memo and that she is really concerned about it, that she's going to watch your decision “very closely” and that in the past two years Seattle has made significant progress combatting overdoses, reducing property and violent crime, and that she doesn't want Seattle to go backwards. What is your response to that? It seems she believed in the hype. Which was inaccurate information. I did reach out to Councilmember Rivera yesterday about this and we have a meeting on the books now. I really look forward to speaking with her, talking to her about some of the misinformation. It seems like there's going to be a lot of resistance to policies that help drug users and poor people. How are you going to both deliver results that you mentioned on the campaign trail while fighting these narratives that people are going to leverage against you? That's a deep question. It really touches on what I mentioned on Monday. I think back that my grandpa did, wearing a black beret, raising his fists and just being met with outrage. He got death threats. People were so angry. It was what was needed in that moment, and it stood the test of time. And so I'm putting that lens on what's been currently happening that hasn't been working. We can go to 12th and Jackson, we can go to parts of Belltown. We need to have better, smart approaches to what we're seeing on our streets, and people are going to be angry, but I'm committed to being a good steward of public safety and our dollars, and not just saying things that sound good, but trying to actually address underlying root causes. And I say that with the backbone of someone that's been working in public safety for nearly a decade at almost all levels. Having that perspective as well is important when you've been doing the work. Evidence is in our streets right now of how the status quo has not been not working. Going back to your priorities on the campaign trail. You talked about bringing back community court. What does it take to bring that back? And are those wheels in motion? Yes, they are in motion. We have met with the Seattle Municipal Court. They're very excited. They want it back. We're working in partnership with the Department of Public Defense. We have folks from their office that have helped us on our transition team, so stay tuned, because I want to make sure we have a good relationship and the priorities of [community court] in conjunction with DPD, the courts, and our office. We're setting the things in motion to get it to get it back. It's going to take time. Okay, and we’ve talked about this before, but refresh my memory: Is bringing back community court something that has to go through city council, or is that something that you have all of the levers and pulleys that you do on your own? It's kind of mixed. From speaking with the court, it seems that we might be able to do certain things to get—not a skeleton—but something kind of there without needing all the additional funding yet from city council. That's something we're actively figuring out right now.  Another one of your priorities, speeding up these case backlogs, specifically around domestic violence and DUIs. Anything in the works for that right now? I just got the data. We currently have about 1,300 cases that are in the backlog, which is not as high as it's ever been. [Editor’s note: When Davison took office, due to the pandemic, the case backload reached 5,000.] But considering the former city attorney dismissed and just dumped a whole bunch of cases to try to clear it, it's like a new backlog has been created now and I’m making sure that we're just being really intentional about what we're filing. I'm meeting with our DV folks in the next week or two, and so that is a priority to making sure those cases are getting charged quickly. Same with DUIs. Another thing that is a priority this legislative session is trying to find private funding for the labs, because the toxicology backlogs do contribute to some of the delays with the DUIs. We're hoping to get things moving to deliver on those things. Are you expecting turnover in the city attorney's office? I know your predecessor was not the most ideologically aligned with you. I don't know if that extends to the attorneys that were under her. Will they be staffing changes? Deputy Seattle City Attorney Scott Lindsay, he's no longer staying on board. Her Criminal Division Chief, Fred Weiss is no longer staying on board, and her Civil Division Chief is no longer staying on board, so I have essentially hired a whole new leadership team.  I'm bringing on board, for our Civil Division Chief, Becca Cohen. She's coming from the Department of Justice. She's been leading the civil division of the US Attorney's Office and is someone that Attorney General Nick Brown put into that spot. She was at the DOJ for 20 years and she also identifies as a woman of color. We're bringing on board, as our Criminal Division Chief, Jenna Robert. She is coming from Nick Brown’s attorney general's office right now. And we have Alan Pyke as our communications director. He worked on Bernie Sanders campaign previously. So, a little different from Ol’ Ann?  [Laughs] Yes.  So, this may have changed, but during the election, some public defenders came forward and were not supportive of your candidacy. They brought up concerns that, as a prosecutor, you worked against their clients and worried you wouldn’t stay true to the progressive values you championed on the campaign trail. What do you say to those people? Are you still hearing these doubts? I'm a city attorney for the entire city. I had multiple people from the Department of Public Defense on our transition team to help lead our action items and priorities. I am all about collaborating and partnering with them, and I really want to change the culture between DPD and our office there. Historically, it hasn't been something that is a good partnership. There's always people that aren't gonna be happy. They have some great people in their office and I look forward to working with them.  You're Seattle’s first Black city attorney. What does that mean to you? I'm thinking more so what it means for our city and what it really means for young Black and brown folks, when they see this, they think, “This is possible. This is something that we can and will also do.” And it also is something we did together as a city to make history together. It's meaningful. It's about damn time. When we met last year when you were just launching your campaign, I got the sense that you didn't want to center your identity. Yeah, I didn’t want to be the Black candidate. Right, you didn't want to run on identity politics. Can you just walk me through that choice? I know that as diverse folks, when that becomes a focal point, everything else gets missed. I needed to lean in. I'm the most qualified person. I might be the youngest out of everyone that ran. But when it came to actual boots on the ground, actual experience, I was the most qualified. That was important because I didn't want me being a Black woman, to get people thinking, “Oh, that's just the reason why.” I’m not explaining this well, damn it! Is there room for any New Year's resolutions for you as a person who just became the city attorney?  Absolutely. I’m trying to drink more water.  ...read more read less